enabling technology

Marketing automation – monitor the behavior of prospects

Sales and marketing can work together. The reports of sales and marketing dysfunction are greatly exaggerated.

A survey by the CMO Council and its Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE) found that less than 20 percent of respondents regard their sales and marketing organizations as extremely collaborative; while among those who have CRM applications, only 13 percent view the application as highly valued and widely deployed, and 50 percent said they had trouble finding customer account data, did not have enough information, or had none at all.

Another survey from Eloqua shows that marketing and sales are becoming more closely aligned. More than 90 percent rated the relationship between their sales and marketing departments as “okay” or “excellent.” This alignment is due to increasing sophistication of marketers and sales people who can now monitor the behavior of customers – what did customer ABC look at online, what did they download, how many times did they visit, etc.

This sophistication is also driven by a shared workflow language with common definitions. Where marketing once considered a “lead” anybody that registered for anything, now there is a growing realization, forced by better workflow and rules descriptions in technology, that the term “lead” should only be applied to people who are ready to buy.

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